The Ultimate Cozy Guide to Harvesting & Using Lilacs in Your Kitchen
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Lilacs are an incredible plant that symbolize the emotions of love and are filled with nostalgia for many people. A spring blooming perennial, this shrub grows all over the world and has many useful benefits that occur alongside its ability to share its incredible scent with the world! In this guide, you can learn how to harvest lilacs for use in your home kitchen as well as how to preserve them to enjoy all year long!
are lilacs good for you?
Lilacs are incredibly beneficial for your health, making them an excellent option for creating floral-filled foods in your kitchen! In short, lilacs can help with antioxidant protection, have anti-inflammatory properties, benefit immune support and skin health, treat respiratory conditions, and reduce stress.
Of course, be cautious with any foraged plants you may consume. If you are taking medications that are for kidney function, certain types of antibiotics, or diuretic medications you should consult with your healthcare practitioner. Please take any all holistic medicine or herbal foraging advice with a grain of salt, especially from a website that is not professionally approved - like ours! I am not a trained herbalist and am only sharing my experiences as a hobbyist and Master Gardener.
folklore
Lilacs generally bloom between Beltane (the Gaelic May Day/start of summer) and Litha (the summer solstice). In Iowa, where I live, they tend to bloom during the first week of May. This year, we had lilacs bursting open during the last two weeks of April, which is highly unusual! Traditionally, lilacs have always been a playful and flirtatious flower and were a way for young couples to showcase their new love or a “short attraction.”
In the Victorian Language of Flowers, different colors of lilacs have different meanings. White lilacs symbolize purity and innocence, and purple lilacs symbolize spirituality. If your lilacs are more blue, then they can mean happiness and tranquility. Magenta lilacs, like mine, symbolize love and passion.
Historically, lilacs were placed above baby’s cribs to bring wisdom in Russia while in America they were hung in a house believed to be haunted so that it would drive away evil spirits! You may recognize their symbolism from the Ancient Greek myth of Pan who was in love with a nymph name Syringa. Syringa turns herself in a lilac bush to avoid Pan’s pursuit, and he cuts the reeds to create the first pan pipe, or flute, as lilacs have hollow reeds.
identifying lilacs:
The common lilac, or Synringa vulgaris, is a flowering plant that belongs to the olive family Oleaceae. You may recognize the name from the Greek myth! They are native to the Balkan peninsula and typically grows on rocky hills. It can grow as a shrub or a small tree, and the most common lilacs that I have seen grown in the US are of the shrub variety. Our lilac bush is well over 10 to 15 high, and we have several other smaller varieties scattered about the farm. They come in so many beautiful colors such as white, light purple, deep lavender, and even magenta.
The bark of the lilac bush is grey to grey-brown and has smooth young stems that are hollow inside. The leaves are simple with smooth edges, usually oval or codate shaped, growing in pairs or whorls of three. The flowers have a tubular base with open lobed petals.
where to find lilacs:
You can find lilacs all over the world, though they are native to the Balkan Peninsula. They were introduced to Europe in the late 1500s and traveled through various botanists all over the world. Lilacs were first introduced to North America in the 18th century.
The common lilac is not native to the US, so you won’t be able to find it growing wild unless it was planted and abandoned at some point. There are lookalike plants such as the Wild Lilac, or Ceanothus cuneatus and Ceanothus thrysiflorus. These are found in Oregon and are not the same as the common lilac. If you would like to find common lilacs to use in your cooking, it would be best to grow your own or find someone who grows them that would be willing to share with you or sell some to you! More and more small scale farmers are selling lilacs at local markets, too.
how to harvest lilacs for food:
If you do have the opportunity to harvest lilacs yourself, there are some useful tips to learn so that you get the most out of the flowers.
If you are harvesting lilacs for edible purposes, it is best to pinch off the flower heads when most the individual flowers have opened. Because you will not be saving the lilacs in a vase of water, you will want the flowers open so that they are at their best for use in culinary endeavors.
Pick in the early morning or evening when the sun is not at its peak. This is true for most plants, as they will last longer with the help of cooler temperatures. Like us, they are usually weak and overheated by midday. Harvesting in the morning while the dew is still on the petals is best as it will help your flowers to remain perky.
Pinch back the flowers from their stems and gather them into a basket. You do not want to cut off any budding areas so that the plant will continue to grow in future years. If you are picking when the flowers have all mostly opened, this will be easy to do as the flowers will be nearly to ready to fall off of the bush on their own.
Bring the flowers inside and gently pick off the blossoms and buds off of the stems. Any greens parts need to be removed as they can make your food bitter. You only want the flowers. Pinch and pull away.
Place the blossoms in a colander and wash them in cold water. You can plunge them into a sink or bowl, which is easier on the delicate blossoms than rinsing them with the tap or a sprayer. After washing, lay the lilacs out on paper towels to gently pat them dry. I think its best to place them in a salad spinner and spin to wick the water away.
Place the cold, dried blossoms into a plastic bag and seal them, removing most of the air. You can store them in the fridge for about 1 week or longer, or use them right away at this point.
how to harvest lilacs as cut flowerS:
If you would prefer to harvest your lilacs as a cut flower, you will need to include a few additional steps rather than just snipping at the branches and popping them into a vase of water! Lilacs can be sensitive as cut flowers, and I have learned many tricks as a retired flower farmer to keep them happy and blooming for a week or more.
Cut your lilacs in the early morning or evening, before the sun has taken most of their water and removed the dew. Lilacs can wilt quickly if picked when they are under-watered, so make sure that they are lively and perky during the chillier points of the day.
Find stems that have flowers with at least 1/3 of the flowers opened. If all of the flowers are still closed, they may not open after being cut. If all of the flowers on the stem have opened, they will not last very long in the vase. Those with 1/3 of the flowers opened will continue to open over time in the vase, giving you a long-lasting bouquet.
Cut the stem to your desired length, usually a little longer than you want so that you can cut the ends and refresh the stems later. Remove any leaves from the branch and anything that may be submerged underwater in the vase. Leave only the flowers and foliage that will be kept above water.
Cut the very bottom of the stem in half or into fourths. It will be like cutting an X about 1-inch (2.5-cm) up the bottom of the stem. Then gently rip the cut part of the stem apart, as pictured above. This is necessary for their woody stems to be able to intake water, otherwise they will wilt almost immediately.
The day after cutting, make another cut to the stem a bit higher up and make a X cut into the bottom again. You can do this step every single day to help refresh the lilacs, and this will help them to last for about 5 to 10 days in the vase.
Once cut, lilacs should be immediately added to water and not left to lay on the counter for too long. You may choose to add flower food if you wish, though I have not noticed much difference between using it or not over the years. You can also add some granulated sugar to the vase if you want to give the flowers a little boost.
cooking with lilacs:
Cooking with lilacs can be so fun! They are easy to work with and add some lovely floral essence to dishes that you might not have considered including them in. Lilacs are wonderful for making into jelly, syrup, infused sugar, infused oil, infused salt, and in baked goods like cookies, scones, biscuits, cakes, and icings.
Here is a recipe from my blog that use lilacs:
preserving lilacs:
You can preserve lilacs to enjoy them throughout the entire year! This flower only blooms for a short time, so it can be lovely to save them in your kitchen and revisit their lovely scent and flavor in the middle of autumn or winter. If you love their fragrant scent, it can be incredibly rewarding to learn how to preserve lilacs.
Dry them. Harvest the lilacs as you would for fresh food, but instead of storing them in the fridge lay them out on a mesh drying rack and place them in a spot that is temperature controlled and has good air flow. They should dry in a couple of days and can be stored in an airtight container for several years.
Brew some Lilac Tea. Simply pour boiling hot water over fresh lilac blossoms or dried ones and let steep for about 10 minutes before drinking.
Make Lilac Jelly. You can easily make your own lilac jelly from a simple lilac tea recipe!
Make Lilac Syrup. Combine lilacs, sugar, and water to create a simple syrup. Let the lilacs steep in the simple syrup until cool, then strain and store the syrup in the refrigerator for about one week.
Make Sugared Lilacs. Brush the lilacs with a mixture of egg white and vodka with a paintbrush. Then sprinkle some sugar over the flowers and leave them to dry on a wire cooling rack. After 24-48 hours, they should be dried out and can be stored in an airtight container for over a year!
One thing I have learned over the years is that lilacs do not freeze well. Unfortunately, every method I have tried doing this, the thawed lilacs end up browning almost immediately.
final thoughts:
Whether you are new or old to using lilacs in your recipes, I hope that this guide made the entire process of harvesting, cleaning, and preserving lilacs much easier to understand. While I believe it is good to know a lot about the plants that you are foraging or growing for food, it can also be really overwhelming! With this cozy guide, I hope that you know that you are doing an excellent job in your foraging journey and that it doesn’t have to be all about preserving food for an entire lifetime! Simply using a few handfuls of blossoms for one recipe is still worthy of your time. Are the lilacs blooming where you live?
xoxo Kayla
more posts you might enjoy!
sources
6 Lilac Facts That Will Impress Your Gardening Friends; Better Homes & Gardens
Language of flowers; Wikipedia
Summer Solstice (Litha); Indiana University
Beltane; Wikipedia
Lilac Magic & Folklore; Learn Religions
